


Convergence Point

by ferrumnegative



Category: Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 14:10:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3981001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferrumnegative/pseuds/ferrumnegative
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prowl makes a left turn.</p><p>Things shift.  Outcomes diverge.  Yoketron is never met.</p><p>A draft dodger begins working with a bounty hunter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Convergence Point

 

 

***now**

 

“It’s a deal, then.”

Hesitation hung.  But anything else couldn’t have been expected.

“Right.  It’s a deal.”  And that was it.

Lockdown leaned back.  The chair creaked, and something in the sound whispered to Prowl ‘ _everything is different now_ ’ with a sickly metallic smile.

It was probably right enough.  In retrospect, ‘different’ was what Prowl had been after.  'Different' was better than 'same' by easy fault of lousy luck and even lousier decisions.  A good combination for bad results.

 

 

***earlier**

 

 

One night, there’d been a knock on a door.  Quick, loud, and with the unmistakable tone of intent.

Prowl didn’t have to answer to know who it was.  At the time, he was living in a broken down wreck of a hovel.  A place no one knew about except the dodgy dealer who gave it to him for a low price that told Prowl what it looked like before he'd even seen it - an address that didn’t exist.

Another hard knock.  So he slipped through the back window that was half the reason he got the place, and that was it. 

That was the first time, and it’d been the easiest.

From then on, ‘The Guard’ became an oddly vulgar thing in Prowl’s mind.  Synonymous with a fine-toothed monster hiding in a dead-end alley, waiting for him to walk too close, blink, and grab him before his optics opened again.  So far, he’d kept his distance.  But the clawed thing kept watching him and waiting for a slip and fall.

Patience paid off, and Prowl slipped.

 

 

***now (ten minutes ago)**

 

 

An hour ago, he’d been charging down a thin street on two wheels and too much recklessness.  Enough guards, and he had a nanoclick to decide between going left or right at a fork in the road.  He turned left.  As he went, a secondary processor somewhere in his wiring showed him an upper guardsman with paint as red a cup of the city's worst energon not too far the opposite way.

It was enough for him to believe he went the right direction.  He’d never had good luck, but he’d always had _good-enough_ luck when he needed it most.  Some darkly painted sense of humor in him figured that made things balance out.  But never enough.

 

 

***always**

 

 

Prowl had wanted out of draft dodging the first chance he got.

When the first chance hit a thickly plated metal wall in mostly literal ways, he grabbed harder at the second chance.

Another wall.

He needed a set of wheels that could break through dense platinum.

Chances added up.  The tightly bound wires lining his processors and frayed at every curve gathered, composed, and filed away a long list of lost opportunities, dubious as every single one of them were.  Dealing and stowing away, gambling and swindling.  In the end, they twisted, turned, and warped into a grotesque bullet list of things that never panned out.

 

 

***now (again)**

 

 

At the end of the list, was the chance that sat in front of him.

Under a rusted green-yellow light with a pick between teeth too sharp, it grinned.  It read him.  It waited.  But it knew he'd say yes.

By now, Prowl had mastered tricking himself into forgetting what he knew if it ebbed at ataraxia.  But he always knew he couldn’t hide forever, and forgetting never lasts long enough.  The Guard knew too.  That’s why he there with Lockdown.

The offer was 'bounty hunting'.  Assisting with it.  Prowl almost laughed when the bot in front of him suggested it.  His whirring processors drew pictures of a glossy reception desk in a meticulously organized office with tiled floors and too much cleaning solution that screamed professionalism.  Pastel holograms of scenery from pink and purple placid planets.  His imagination could go on.

But the two were in the main room of Lockdown's veiled ship now, and if there was a perfect parallel to everything pristinely office-like, they were standing in it.

It could've been worse.  It could've been the underground casino with the half burnt walls and usually-stale-enough-to-poison drinks he worked at around a deca-cycle ago.

Lockdown promised concealment.  He promised a life hidden from The Guard.  He had the expertise to get it done.  The practice, the gadgets, the believable string of words.  All Prowl had to do was give was everything he was and had and would ever be to him, which Prowl figured wasn't much to begin with.  It was an almost-guarantee of no more running, said in barbed words by a smooth-slicked tongue.  It was everything he didn’t have.  It was the best he was going to get.

“See, _partner_?  Faster and easier than filling out a form with the 'EG' and showing up for role call.  Less painless too, that’s for sure - the things you’da’ hear them make skinny, hapless newcomers like you go through for basic training.”

“Keep overusing those warnings and I'll start believing you're an informer for the smelting Guard itself."  A pause.  An exhale.  "You've got me, alright?”

Prowl's tone was sliced with fevered irritation.  The kind of tone he used too much to know how to stop himself when he went too far.  But Lockdown smiled and laughed and it was something between genuine and mocking.

It was the first time Prowl had seen someone react to his anger like that.  He didn't like it.

“That’s for sure."


End file.
